u/getitoffmychestpleas

I have many things to be grateful for, and I'd never want to be 20 again. But I really am in a crisis here, dealing with a body that's starting to betray me (I'm not even 60 yet), ongoing social issues (can't ever really connect in a long-term, meaningful way with people), seeing the direction the world is heading, AND facing old age and the lack of control that will come with that. It's all so depressing and I can't snap out of it. I've lost my fire, I have no oomph, no fight left. So I feel stuck. I'm starting to really question the point of this. Fewer than a handful of people would miss me. I don't mean to sound melodramatic, just being logical. I mean, what is the point, if pain outweighs joy most of the time?

Any other GenXers starting to "feel it" or is it just me? Seems like the world is going in one direction (younger, faster, more populated, busier, harder) while I'm going another (softer, more vulnerable, less sharp) and the contrast has felt really brutal lately. Just trying to figure out a new patient portal sends me spinning, or being in a crowd (even if it's a cheerful one). I can't keep up - with technology, with media, with world news, with youthful energy, with freeway driving - I feel old. I know it's not cool to bitch about aging, but this shit scares me.

Seems like the world is going in one direction (younger, faster, more populated, busier, harder) while I'm going another (softer, more vulnerable, less sharp) and the contrast has felt really brutal lately. Just trying to figure out a new patient portal sends me spinning, or being in a crowd even if it's a cheerful one. I can't keep up - with technology, with media, with world news, with youthful energy, with freeway driving - I feel old. I know it's not cool to bitch about aging, but this shit scares me.

I'd love to find people like me but sometimes we lose more of ourselves trying to fit in than we even realize. Who are you underneath all that? How would you be in the world if you could just be who you are? What are you covering up exactly, and if you could be free to be you, what would that look like?

We are not religious, but we are proud Jews. I want to find a bigger, better Jewish community than I have here in my smallish town. We vibe more with traditional Judaism than progressive. We're older - not retirement old yet, but getting there. We're not rich, not poor.

As I've gotten older I'm much more curious about my mysterious Jewish background. I've tested as being 99% Ashkenazi. I have traveled all over Eastern Europe finding my ancestors' graves and homes and synagogues, and to Israel several times. I got my Hebrew name, am learning Hebrew, and am learning about different aspects of Judaism.

The Jewish community in my town is mainly centered at the Chabad and I was thrilled to find it and to start showing up. I've been volunteering there for a year, meeting students and their parents and community members, and getting to know the rabbi and his family.

And now it comes to a screeching halt. He had assured me that no question was too off base. No doubt or lack of faith was a problem. My interest and participation was enough. Yet for months now it's obvious he has shut me out in some unspoken way. His wife encourages me to show up, his attitude tells me I'm not welcome. I'd rather he just tell me "You offended me" or "I don't like you" or "Go away" than this silent treatment. I went from baffled to feeling ashamed to where I am today: pissed off. And worse, I'm having second thoughts about continuing to throw myself into Jewish learning, because if this it what it's about... who needs it?!?!?!

My husband reassures me that it's about the rabbi, not about me. That he's immature, he's acting like a jerk. But I don't even know why or what happened, and I can't get any answers. Only the cold shoulder.

I just want to connect with my people, and I gotta tell ya, these people aren't it. I wasn't raised Jewish, I had to virtually "come out" with my Judaism in the past few years to a family deep in denial or maybe shame about our ancestry. But after October 7 I knew who I was.

I live in a relatively small town, so it's pretty slim pickins. We've got a Reform temple, where the focus is on young families with a heavy leaning of politics that go in a particular direction a little further than I'm comfortable with. That rabbi is more of a showman and entertainer than a beacon of wisdom, can't even get our names right and always seems to have one more Monster energy drink in him than necessary.

Then we have a Chabad on the university campus, geared of course toward college students but begrudgingly open to members of the public. That rabbi has turned out to be a bit of a jerk, to be honest, discouraging deep questions and giving the cold shoulder for who knows what reasons. Plus the whole messiah bit is a real turn-off.

So I'm learning Hebrew on my own, learning Torah on my own, not finding the social connections I'd hoped for, and wondering why this all mattered to me in the first place. Is this a "normal experience", is it because it's a small town, or is it just that I'll never quite qualify now that I'm older and trying to find something my family left behind 80 years ago?

I put myself out there and try to meet new people, but inevitably it doesn't end well and I'm alone again. I'm not shy, not exactly, I just observe everything and everyone carefully and constantly, whether I want to or not. Like the alien in "Under the Skin". People are somewhat interesting, but I'm always aware that I'm not one of them.

Sometimes I stop trying and just accept my "otherness". Nature and animals are enough, a good movie or song fill my soul. But I'm a social animal too, I'd love to find my people... yet in nearly 60 years I never have.

Other times I think I can do it, I can make a friend or at least connect with a person on some level. But no. Either I find myself incredibly disappointed from expecting too much (despite having lowered my expectations to nearly nothing at this point), or I lose interest, or we lack common interests. Maybe they sense how different I am, or maybe I just don't like people. Maybe I'm too deep. Maybe I'm too shallow. Whatever the problem is, my relationships fizzle, or worse, they implode.

I'm stuck as a perpetual angsty teenager, now trapped in the body of an old woman.

Because for me, it sucks ass. My body is changing in ways I can't comprehend, I'm withered, exhausted and unattractive, I could care less about sex, ditto about which university your kids are going to or the latest war or any "news", and life is only going to get tougher from here. I'm so tired of trying to find info and support for my aches and pains only to be met with "I've never felt sexier/healthier/more active in my entire life thanks to (some stupid trendy drink or shot or cream or suppository)". I hate this. I still feel 25 years old inside this ancient saggy flesh sack but all evidence points toward me being a miserable old hag.

I lost so many years to loneliness and shame. I want to re-parent myself but it seems so daunting.

No, I'm not paying $1,700 to find out that I am definitively on the spectrum, I already know that I am. And I'm definitely not paying a few more grand after that for an "in-depth exploration". Give me a break.

I've been able to make some crazy connections. Found birth mothers and fathers despite sealed adoption records, found actual birthdates versus lifelong false ones (women really tried to hide their ages!), discovered affairs and imprisonments, all kinds of neat stuff. And it occurred to me that while I will never know everything, my own ancestors would be surprised at some of what I've found about their own parents and grandparents.

I always knew that no one would choose to suffer like I do, but I was so busy beating myself up for not fitting in and all the rejection by my peers (and of myself) that I forgot about self-compassion. I do belong somewhere, it's just not a place I had looked before.

I'm on the spectrum.

There is no need to punish myself, to fight against this thing I was born with, to feel ashamed for my differentness. There was never any need for it. It's not my fault.

It isn't all bad. There are gifts that come along with it. And I'm not the only one. There are other people like me. I can't believe it.

WTF? I'm finding myself looking forward to listening to specific operas or fugues while I clean. While I clean my house of my own free will. I've taken a liking to phrases like "taken a liking to". I adore black licorice, ginger candies, half-cooked egg yolk. I'M MORPHING INTO AN OLD PERSON WITHOUT MY CONSENT.

Anyone else? You've got the bills covered, you take decent care of your health, your life is fairly safe and predictable - because you know your limits. But then there's this feeling of wasted potential; some shame when you watch your peers or even people much younger than you moving up up up because they're talented and able and can network; seeing families grow over the years with relatively happy, healthy, well-adjusted kids and grandkids (when you opted out of that because you knew you weren't cut out for parenting).

I've made a lot of good decisions for myself based on my limitations, but my life does feel limited. Not many connections, won't leave much of a mark. Not sure what the point of it all is.

Anyone else? You've got the bills covered, you take decent care of your health, your life is fairly safe and predictable - because you know your limits. But then there's this feeling of wasted potential; some shame when you watch your peers or even people much younger than you moving up up up because they're talented and able and can network; seeing families grow over the years with relatively happy, healthy, well-adjusted kids and grandkids (when you opted out of that because you knew you weren't cut out for parenting).

I've made a lot of good decisions for myself based on my limitations, but my life does feel limited. Not many connections, won't leave much of a mark. Not sure what the point of it all is.

Anyone else? You've got the bills covered, you take decent care of your health, your life is fairly safe and predictable - because you know your limits. But then there's this feeling of wasted potential; some shame when you watch your peers or even people much younger than you moving up up up because they're talented and able and can network; seeing families grow over the years with relatively happy, healthy, well-adjusted kids and grandkids (when you opted out of that because you knew you weren't cut out for parenting).

I've made a lot of good decisions for myself based on my limitations, but my life does feel limited. Not many connections, won't leave much of a mark. Not sure what the point of it all is.

I'm sort of stunned. I'm finding incredible stuff about my ancestors - the little shtetls they had to leave behind, assorted marriages and divorces, adoptions, kooky arrests, plus all kinds of photos and documents. I think it's all fascinating because we never knew any of this, but no one else in my family cares. They don't understand why it's important to me, and I don't understand why it's not to them.

It's always such a bleak reminder of how different I am, it's so lonely. They don't notice the things I do, they don't care about the things I do, and I'm done masking and pretending I don't care either. Their conversations are so boring, empty, void of substance, yet they're perfectly happy to keep talking about nothing. Happy with their Lululemon and their stupid coffee drinks, their new car with tinted windows and their upcoming trip. They're never present, never actually in the moment, they don't see the hawk that just flew overhead or the ladybug on the leaf, they just talk talk talk talk and I shrink shrink shrink shrink. I don't fucking care about your catch phrases or stupid trends. That's not what life is supposed to be (followed by me beating myself up for not being like them).

There's me, about five years old, and I can already see the sadness. Those hopeless little brown eyes, the struggle to smile, already knowing I'd lost my mother to the new stepfather (whose infantile needs trumped those of her own children and still do to this day), with no one's comforting arms or ears to go to. No one. Back then I had no words for depression, I just remember not wanting to wake up each morning. Now I look back at that little girl and I want to pick her up, rock her back and forth, caress her cheek, wipe her tears, and take her for a chocolate malt. To listen to her fears, assure her she wasn't alone, and beat the everloving shit out of two ignorant, useless parents who never valued what really mattered.

This is a "progress" post, not because I'm now perfectly well adjusted and full of a zest for life, but because I'm still alive somehow and now have a healthy amount of rage at them, and not against myself.